THE  CON^JEDETJITE  SOLDIEFw 
Carr 


ADDRESS  OF 

GENERAL  JULIAN  S.  CARR 


'*Tke  Confederate  Soldier" 

Reunion,  Richmond,  Va. 
June  2,  1915 


Sty*  Ethraqj 

of  ttjP 

31ntnf rstlg  of  Nortlj  (Earoltna 


QloUrrtton  of  North.  CteoUmatta 


cOit 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/addressofgeneralOOcarr 


THE  CONFEDERATE  SOLDIER" 


To  speak  to  my  beloved  Comrades,  who  wore  the 
Gray,  wherever  they  may  light  the  camp  fires  of  Re- 
union, and  live  again  the  glory,  the  fierce  joy,  and 
alas  the  sorrow  of  lurid  years  of  battle,  is  a  privi- 
lege to  be  cherished. 

But  hero  indeed  is  he,  to  be  doubly  envied,  who 
comes  to  the  council  fires  at  the  heart  of  the  Confed- 
eracy, whose  privilege  it  is  to  grasp  the  welcoming 
hand  and  meet  the  kindly  glance  of  dear  old  comrades 
whose  life-blood  baptized  the  sacred  soil  of  Virginia 
from  the  Chickahominy  to  the  James,  from  Malvern 
Hill  to  Gettysburg. 

Fellow  Comrades,  in  assembling  here  in  the  City 
of  Richmond  for  reunion,  embargoes  our  hearts  and 
minds  with  memory  of  the  days  when  Richmond  op- 
ened her  hospitable  gates,  as  the  headquarters  of  the 
Confederacy,  and  sought  to  present  a  home  to  the 
great  Mississippian  who  was  its  first  and  only  presi- 
dent. 

And  the  story  of  Virginia's  fidelity  through  the 
long  years  of  siege  and  privation  is  one  of  the  most 
precious  of  the  sibylline  leaves  of  history. 

This  country  needs  the  record  of  the  Confederate 
soldier  to  make  full  and  complete  the  narrative  of  its 
greatness  and  renown. 

The  humblest  private  who  wore  the  Gray  with 
honor  will  go  down  to  his  final  rest  with  such  rank  in 


the  pantheon  of  history  that  Knights  Errant  and 
chivalrous,  and  the  decorated  Wearers  of  Stars  and 
Garters  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  or  the  Golden  Fleece, 
never  knew. 

This  is  no  declaration  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
hour  in  the  empty  compliment  to  comrades  and 
friends ;  it's  the  veritable  truth  of  history ;  it's  the 
declaration  of  Fame  around  the  world.  To  look  back 
for  fifty  years  to  the  opening  of  the  great  struggle 
reveals  one  of  the  most  sublime  spectacles  of  moral 
grandeur  that  the  world  has  ever  witnessed. 

When  Aeneas,  who  bore  upon  his  shoulders  his 
aged  father  Anchises  from  the  flames  that  consumed 
Troy,  was  bidden  by  the  Queen  of  Carthage  to  recite 
the  tragic  story  of  the  fall  of  Troy,  he  gave  expression 
to  his  unutterable  grief  in  the  question,  "Who  of  the 
Myrmydons,  or  what  follower  even  of  the  stern 
Ulysses,  could  refrain  from  tears  at  such  recital  ?" 
I  have  no  words  that  I  can  trust  to  utterance  expres- 
sive of  my  feelings,  when  I  attempt  the  recital  of  the 
deeds  of  daring  and  of  valor  of  the  Confederate 
soldier. 

The  difference  in  the  character  of  the  great  body 
of  troops  in  the  armies  that  opposed  each  other  along 
the  Potomac  and  the  James  has  often  been  mentioned 
and  the  price  paid  by  the  South  when  her  bravest  and 
best  sons  were  laid  a  bloody  sacrifice  upon  her  coun- 
try's altars. 

It  is  only  when  one  applies  the  test  of  facts  that 
this  startling  difference  most  fully  appears.  Con- 
trast the  record  of  the  professors  of  Harvard  and  of 
Virginia's  William  and  Mary,  the  two  oldest  insti- 
tutions of  learning  in  America.  The  Massachusetts 
Institution,  with  its  great  numbers  and  means  and  its 


hundreds  of  professors,  had  one  volunteer  to  serve 
upon  the  field  from  its  patriotic  faculty.  The  Vir- 
ginia college,  William  and  Mary,  sent  thirty-two  out 
of  its  thirty-five  professors  and  instructors  to  join  the 
army  in  the  field. 

General  Whittier,  of  their  own  people,  has  pointed 
out  that  although  Massachusetts  paid  thirteen  mil- 
lions of  dollars  from  the  State  in  bounties  to  obtain 
patriots  for  military  service,  besides  many  millions 
more  from  her  leading  cities  and  towns,  yet  a  list  of 
Massachusetts  artillery  and  infantry  regiments,  con- 
taining 20,957  men,  exhibits  but  95  men  of  the  whole 
number  killed  in  battle.  This  moved  the  General  to 
declare  before  his  State  Historical  Society,  with  rare 
candor  and  justice :  "This  does  not  indicate  brilliant 
or  useful  service,  and  yet  the  material  was  probably 
better  than  that  of  any  other  regiment  of  the  State. 
The  same  class  of  men  in  the  South  was  in  the  thick- 
est of  the  fight,  and  their  intelligence  and  pariotism 
did  a  great  work." 

Comrades,  the  more  the  history  of  the  War  between 
the  States  is  studied  with  the  simple  truthful  facts  as 
history  will  sift  them,  the  more  and  yet  the  more, 
without  hard  feelings  toward  others,  you  and  I  may 
thank  God  that  we  wore  the  Gray. 

It  rejoices  the  heart  to  linger  in  those  days  of  chiv- 
alric  daring  when  every  man  in  the  ranks  was  there 
upon  the  mission  of  victory,  and  rank  and  pelf  were 
naught  in  the  eye  of  duty. 

Think  what  manner  of  men  commanded  such 
troops.  How  grandly  looms  forth  the  character  of 
gentleman  and  Christian  from  the  great  commander- 
in-chief,  upon  whose  head  Bishop  Meade  had  bowed 
in  blessing  upon  his  dying  bed — and  the  stern  Com- 

3 


mander  who  wrestled  in  prayer  through  the  night, 
before  he  led  his  column  into  battle,  to  the  third  in 
the  great  trio  of  our  countrymen,  whose  memory  is 
revered  by  every  true  Southerner,  Jefferson  Davis. 

In  the  language  of  our  distinguished  Commander : 
"We  need  not  go  to  the  lands  of  Plato  and  Pericles,  of 
Cicero  and  Csesar,  for  examplars  and  heroes,  expo- 
nents and  martyrs.  We  have  them  at  home.  They 
fell  upon  every  field — from  Bull  Run  to  Appomat- 
tox. And  the  world  has  yet  to  witness  in  soldiers  of 
the  line,  truer  devotion  to  their  flags,  a  higher  sense 
of  martial  individuality  and  intelligent  efficiency 
than  that  displayed  by  the  volunteer  private  soldiers 
in  the  Confederate  armies  from  1861  to  1865.  The 
blood  of  these  martyrs  shall  be  the  deeds  of  new  life 
and  new  liberty  for  all  the  ages.  And  the  fadeless 
memories  of  these  true  men,  without  marble  and 
without  brass,  should  be  eternal." 

If  every  patriotic  Northern  man,  every  brave  Un- 
ion soldier,  every  honest  citizen  of  the  United  States 
would  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Southern  people 
were  neither  rebels  nor  traitors,  the  ends  of  fairness 
would  be  subserved,  sectionalism  would  be  dead,  we 
would  be  more  closely  united  in  the  bonds  of  fra- 
ternal citizenship  and  every  star  in  our  flag  would 
shine  the  brighter. 

The  North  achieved  the  victory  and  the  South 
reaped  the  glory  in  the  most  tremendous  military 
struggle  of  our  hemisphere,  one  of  the  most  desperate, 
sanguinary  and  heroic  wars  of  all  history.  I  would 
speak  of  the  Southerner  before  the  war,  during  the 
war,  and  after  the  war,  and  in  all  these  relations  he 
discovered  as  much  civic  virtue,  displayed  as  daunt- 
less valor,  and  exhibited,  under  adverse  fortune,  as 

4 


admirable  fortitude  as  history  credits  to  any  people  it 
gives  account  of. 

jSTot  so  long  ago  there  were  many  at  the  North  to 
deem  us  traitors,  and  "Southern  treason"  was  the 
campaign  cry  of  those  who  marched  under  the  folds 
of  the  "bloody  shirt."  We  are  yet  stigmatized  as 
rebels  by  some  of  our  loyal  compatriots.  To  the  lat- 
ter epithet  the  South  has  no  very  particular  objec- 
tions. During  the  Christian  era  the  three  grandest 
names  in  political  history  are  Alfred  the  Great,  Wil- 
liam the  Silent,  and  George  Washington.  Technical- 
ly the  first  of  this  important  trio  was  a  rebel.  Actu- 
ally and  legally  the  last  two  were  rebels,  and  the  last 
named  and  greatest  and  grandest  of  the  lot  was  a 
Southerner  and  a  slave-holder.  The  Confederate 
soldier  is  perfectly  willing  to  accept  association  with 
these  demigods  and  cordially  adopt  the  classification, 
and  we  do  it  with  the  more  pride  and  alacrity  when 
we  reinforce  them,  and  incalculably  augment  their 
glory,  by  adding  to  their  numbers  the  Miltiades  of 
the  19th  century — the  world's  greatest  hero — Robert 
E.  Lee,  whom  the  South,  to  remotest  generations, 
will  ever  esteem  the  noblest  personality  mentioned  in 
all  profane  history. 

The  men  of  the  South,  though  of  a  soldier  race, 
loved  peace  as  devotedly  as  any  people  of  any  clime  of 
any  age,  and  it  is  a  slander  and  a  falsehood  to  say  that 
they  wantonly  plunged  their  country  into  a  bloody 
war.  They  were  the  weaker  section, — comparatively 
few  in  numbers,  lamentably  weak  in  resources,  and 
deplorably  slender  in  wealth.  They  were  a  high- 
minded,  proud  race  with  lofty  contempt  for  all  mean- 
ness, true  to  plighted  faith,  and  endowed  with  an  ex- 


quisite  sense  of  personal  honor  universal  in  its  observ- 
ance and  fanatic  in  its  sincerity. 

"Nor  duke  nor  prince  am  I, 
I  am  the  Sieur  de  Coucy," 

might  have  been  the  device  of  proud  humility  award- 
ed by  heraldry  to  tens  of  thousands  of  Southern 
families. 

Have  you  gentlemen  ever  considered,  with  the  eye 
of  philosophy,  the  character  of  that  civilization, 
which  has  passed  away  forever  ?  Have  you  reflected 
that  no  man  went  hungry,  whatever  might  have  been 
his  color ;  that  while  the  highways  were  wretched,  the 
jails  were  practically  empty;  that  charity  was  a  per- 
sonal matter,  not  a  state  concern;  that  brotherhood 
applied  to  its  most  acid  test,  to-wit :  the  endorsement 
of  your  neighbor's  paper  was  almost  universal;  that 
while  justice  was  administered  in  the  temple,  honor 
regulated  affairs  in  the  field,  and  that  leadership  was 
acquired  and  kept  by  the  practice  of  the  virtues  of 
courage,  consistent  conduct,  intelligent  appreciation 
of  the  duty  to  be  done. 

I  mean  to  call  no  honor  roll  in  proof  of  this  state- 
ment. The  names  of  the  worthies  rise  fresh  in  your 
most  casual  count.  These  are  the  laurels  with  which 
the  great  dead  of  our  Southland  are  worthy  to  be 
crowned  withal. 

The  South  was  not  responsible  for  African  slavery 
in  this  hemisphere  and  slavery  at  the  South  was  the 
gentlest  and  the  most  beneficent  servitude  mankind 
has  ever  known.  There  was  a  fellowship  and  an  af- 
fection existing  between  master  and  slave  at  the  South 
beautiful  and  delightful  to  contemplate  and  that  no- 
body but  Southern  folk  who  saw  it  and  acted  it  can 
understand  or  appreciate.    When  that  demoniac  mon- 

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ster,  John  Brown,  brought  fire  and  sword  across  the 
line  to  carry  to  every  Southern  household,  the  slave 
was  more  terror-stricken  than  his  master  was  enraged. 
And  to  show  how  little  the  North  knew  of  the  simple 
and  beautiful  trust  and  affection  that  existed  between 
the  master  and  his  slave  we  have  but  to  revert  to  a 
speech  of  William  II.  Seward,  made  in  1860,  who 
opined  that  the  South  would  never  go  to  war  for  her 
rights,  for  the  Southern  people  knew  that  the  slaves 
would  rise,  massacre  the  Southern  whites  and  give 
their  roofs  to  the  flames.  The  South  did  go  to  war. 
Southern  men  with  the  most  implicit  trust  left  their 
wives  and  children  to  the  protection  of  their  slaves 
and  during  those  four  long,  doleful,  disastrous  and 
terrible  years,  filled  with  so  much  excruciating  suf- 
fering and  crowned  with  such  effulgent  glory,  not  a 
single  outrage  was  perpetrated  by  a  slave  in  a  single 
community  at  the  South. 

The  South  rebelled — I  am  willing  to  call  it  that — 
because  the  isorth  insisted  that  the  stronger  section 
was  not  bound  by  the  Constitution.  The  South  knew 
that  slavery  could  not  exist  in  Kansas,  or  JSTebraska, 
or  California,  or  Oregon.  The  climate  forbade. 
What  the  South  contended  for,  and  all  she  demanded, 
was  the  right  guaranteed  to  her  in  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  land  to  maintain  which  both  sections  had 
solemnly  plighted  faith.  The  rights  of  the  South  as 
ascertained  by  the  adjudications  of  the  Supreme 
Court  were  set  at  naught  by  the  dominant  party  of 
the  jSTorth  which  held  that  the  Constitution  was  "a 
mere  scrap  of  paper,"  that  it  was  "a  league  with 
death  and  a  covenant  with  hell,"  that  there  was  "a 
higher  law,"  unwritten  and  interpreted  by  the  con- 
science of  the  stronger  party  to  the  compact  of  1789. 

7 


That  made  the  war  and  that  war  surely  would  have 
come  had  there  not  been  a  single  slave  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere. 

The  late  John  James  Ingalls  was  a  Yankee  of  the 
Yankees,  transplanted  to  the  congenial  soil  of  "bleed- 
ing  Kansas."  He  was  a  very  candid  man  and  scorned 
a  subterfuge.  Here  is  what  he  said  in  an  elaborate 
address  on  the  negro  question  about  a  year  before  he 
retired  from  the  United  States  Senate : 

"The  conscience  of  New  England  was  never  thor- 
oughly aroused  to  the  immorality  of  African  slavery 
until  it  ceased  to  be  profitable." 

Precisely.  And  African  slavery  would  be  in  the 
green  tree  and  exuberantly  flourishing  In  our  blessed 
and  beloved  land  of  liberty  this  very  moment  had  it 
been  as  profitable  in  Massachusetts  and  Iowa  as  it 
was  supposed  to  be  in  South  Carolina  and  Arkansas. 

Let  me  call  your  attention  to  an  historical  item, 
which,  while  not  unnoticed,  has,  in  my  judgment 
never  received  its  dues  at  the  hands  of  historians. 
That  of  the  twelve  million  men  who  followed  the  for- 
tunes of  the  South,  eight  million  only  were  of  our 
race,  and  of  these  it  is  a  liberal  estimate  to  say  that 
not  exceeding  four  hundred  thousand  had  any  vital 
interest  in  slavery.  Perhaps  it  is  not  an  extravagant 
statement  to  make  that  there  exists  no  record  where 
such  power  as  they  weilded  was  ever  possessed  by  the 
same  number  of  freemen  in  any  stage  of  this  world's 
history.  How  wisely,  how  patriotically,  how  astute- 
ly they  used  their  power;  how  they  united  their 
friends  and  divided  their  opponents;  how  they  ac- 
quired Louisiana  and  Florida ;  how  they  made  war 
for  the  second  time  on  England;  how  they  aided 
Texas  in  her  struggle  for  freedom,  and  ended  by  ab- 


sorbing,  on  equal  terms  with  themselves,  her  terri- 
tory; how  they  acquired  the  gold  of  California,  the 
timber  of  Oregon;  how  they  swayed  the  growing  in- 
terests of  this  great  Republic  from  infancy  to  the 
virile  manhood  of  I860,  when  reluctantly  they  left 
to  found  another  government. 

There  are  many  admirable  traits  in  the  New  Eng- 
land character,  there  is  much  to  commend  even  in  the 
Puritan  of  that  ilk;  but  the  Puritan  had  a  most  un- 
ruly and  refractory  conscience  that  suffered  the  ag- 
onies of  the  damned  for  the  shortcomings  and  trans- 
gressions of  others.  It  was  the  terrible  New  England 
conscience  that  put  an  end  to  the  movement  for  eman- 
cipation of  the  slaves  at  the  South  that  promised  so 
great  success  the  first  four  decades  of  the  last  century. 

When  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  was 
formed  there  were  a  great  number  of  anti-slavery  so- 
cieties at  the  South,  and  had  the  Puritan  conscience 
behaved  itself  with  any  sort  of  moderation  and  de- 
cency all  the  border  'States  of  the  South  would  have 
voluntarily  emancipated  their  slaves.  Even  such  a 
fire-eater  as  Henry  A.  Wise  of  Virginia,  was  only 
restrained  from  emancipating  his  slaves  by  the  fact 
that  when  he  contemplated  it  he  looked  around  and 
made  the  discovery  that  the  free  negroes  of  Virginia 
were  in  much  worse  condition,  morally  and  material- 
ly, than  their  fellows  in  bondage.  The  Chief  Jus- 
tice who  delivered  the  Dred  Scott  decision  emanci- 
pated every  slave  he  owned  except  those  too  old  or 
too  feeble  to  earn  a  support. 

When  New  England  went  into  the  anti-slavery 
business,  the  South,  where  there  was  a  vast  store  of 
human  nature,  resented  it,  and  the  emancipation  con- 
tingent at  the  South  shrank  to  insignificant  numbers. 


Though  Henry  Clay,  the  Breckinridges,  and  the  Un- 
derwoods were  anti-slavery  men,  the  emancipationists 
of  Kentucky  made  a  miserable  showing  when  the  new 
Constitution  of  that  State  was  adopted  in  1850. 
Instead  of  an  "open  clause,"  that  would  have  pro- 
moted emancipation  and  ultimately  secured  the  ex- 
tinction of  slavery  in  the  commonwealth,  there  was 
no  provision  for  amendment  whatever,  and  emanci- 
pation became  practically  a  political  impossibility. 
The  jSTew  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  respon- 
sible for  that  action  in  a  'State  where  the  emancipa- 
tion sentiment  had  been  very  strong.  In  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina  the  emancipation  movement 
dwindled  till  it  became  a  negligible  quantity  in  the 
political  and  social  equation.  Zeb  Vance,  known  and 
loved  where  Southern  blood  courses  in  Southern  veins 
and  the  idol  of  the  Tar  Heels,  was  an  anti-slavery 
man  at  heart,  but  the  meddling  New  Englanders 
stifled  his  principles. 

The  people  of  the  South  were  of  a  proud  race,  and 
while  there  was  an  aristocracy  there,  it  was  a  gentry 
of  honor  rather  than  of  birth,  and  here  in  our  be- 
loved South  of  that  tremendous  epoch  the  distance, 
political  and  social,  between  the  rich  man  and  the 
poor  man  was  shorter  than  anywhere  else  on  this  earth 
in  any  period  of  the  world's  history.  Here  in  the  old 
South  the  slightest  stain  on  a  public  man's  reputation 
meant  political  annihilation  and  social  ostracism. 
It  was  the  grandest  squirehood  and  the  finest  yeo- 
manry any  country  ever  boasted. 

In  1860  the  North,  the  dominant  section,  gave 
power  for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  to  a  party  al- 
together sectional  and  made  no  concealment  of  the 
new  policy  that  the  Constitution  was  a  mere  scrap 

10 


of  paper  and  the  higher  law  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land. 

It  was  a  challenge  to  the  South  and  the  South  was 
prompt  to  lift  the  gage.  The  first  quarter  of  the  last 
century  the  right  of  secession  from  the  Federal  Union 
by  a  sovereign  State,  one  of  the  parties  to  the  compact 
that  made  the  American  sisterhood,  was  little  ques- 
tioned. It  was  threatened  by  Massachusetts  when  it 
was  proposed  to  admit  Louisiana  as  a  State  of  the 
Union  and  nobody  challenged  Mr.  Quincy  when  in 
the  Federal  Senate  he  declared  that  in  the  event  the 
new  State  became  one  of  the  sisterhood  it  would  be 
the  'duty  of  some  as  it  was  the  right  of  all  the  States  to 
recall  the  powers  they  had  delegated  in  the  Constitu- 
tion and  withdraw  from  the  Union,  and  there  is  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  the  victory  of  General  Jack- 
son at  New  Orleans  and  the  treaty  of  peace  negotiated 
at  Ghent  bringing  to  a  close  the  War  of  1812  pre- 
vented the  secession  of  some  of  the  New  England 
States  in  1815.  Had  it  come  then  the  separation 
would  have  been  peaceable. 

But  by  1860  the  Union,  child  of  the  statecraft  of 
the  South  mainly,  had  waxed  in  power  and  wealth 
and  influence  until  our  Republic  was  recognized  as 
one  of  the  leading  nations  of  the  world.  During  that 
seventy  years  the  South  was  dominant  in  the  councils 
of  state  at  the  national  capital  and  with  a  lofty  dis- 
interestedness had  allowed  the  more  populous  and 
more  wealthy  North  to  profit  most  in  a  material  sense 
from  the  advantages  and  blessings  of  the  government. 
She  sold  her  wares  abroad  in  a  free  trade  market  and 
purchased  the  supplies  necessary  to  her  household 
economy  in  the  domestic  protected  market.  All  she 
asked  in  return  was  the   acknowledgment   and   ob- 

11 


servance  of  lier  equal  rights  as  defined  in  the  Consti- 
tution, the  character  of  the  Union. 

Then  the  South  seceded  and  as  the  event  disclosed 
war  was  inevitable.  The  antagonists  were  most  un- 
evenly matched.  In  numbers,  in  wealth,  in  resources, 
in  financial  credit,  the  ISTorth  was  overwhelmingly  the 
superior.  In  addition  the  more  powerful  section  had 
an  established  government  and  flag  everywhere  recog- 
nized and  respected  by  alien  peoples.  But  the  South 
scorned  to  count  the  cost.  She  dared  "to  put  it  to  the 
touch,"  and  staked  her  all  upon  the  issues  of  battle. 
The  manhood  of  the  South  sprang  to  arms : 

"The  fisher  left  his  skiff  to  rock 
On  Tamar's  glittering  waves ; 
The  rugged  miners  poured  to  war 
From  Mendip's  sunless  caves." 

It  was  a  magnificent  civilian  soldiery  that  delivered 
battle  for  the  South.  It  was  not  an  army  of  slave- 
holders, either,  for  in  its  ranks  were  tens  of  thou- 
sands, many  of  them  of  the  field  and  staff  as  well  as 
of  the  rank  and  file,  who  gladly  would  have  brought 
about  emancipation  of  the  slave  could  they  have  seen 
a  provident  and  a  beneficent  way  to  accomplish  it. 

It  was  an  army  terribly  in  earnest — freemen  fight- 
ing for  freedom  led  by  captains  with  a  genius  for 
war  that  is  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  soldiers  of 
every  clime.  For  four  years  the  unequal  stgruggle 
continued.  The  best  and  bravest  fell  in  action.  Our 
territory  was  overrun  by  the  enemy  and  much  of  it 
devastated.  It  was  a  combat  of  six  Southern  men 
against  twenty-eight  adversaries,  for  the  North  had 
enrolled  2,800,000  and  the  South  but  600,000.  The 
disparity  in  wealth  and  resources  was  even  greater, 


12 


for  the  jSTorth  had  the  world  to  draw  upon  and  the 
South  was  dependent  on  her  own  slender  resources. 

Eo  soldiery  of  any  age  or  clime  ever  displayed 
more  genius  for  arms  than  did  the  legions  of  the 
South  in  our  great  struggle  of  1861-65  and  there  is 
more  buried  valor  in  the  heroic  bosom  of  old  Virginia 
than  in  all  the  rest  of  our  heisphere  besides.  When 
Stonewall  Jackson  struck  the  enemy,  overwhelmingly 
superior  in  numbers,  at  Chancellorsville,  he  and  his 
invincible  infantry 

"Came  as  the  winds  come  when  forests  are  rended, 
Came  as  the  waves  come  when  navies  are  stranded." 

And  the  "rebel  yell"  !  It  was  the  fiercest  and  the 
most  terrible  war  cry  ever  practiced  by  the  sons  of 
Mars.  Of  another  summons  to  battle  a  great  poet 
sang : 

"By  this,  though  deep  the  evening  fell, 
Still  rose  the  battle's  deadly  swell, 
For  still  the  Scotts,  around  their  King, 
Unbroken,   fought  in  desperate  ring. 
Where's  now  their  victor  va-ward  wing, 

Where  Huntly  and  where  Home  ? 
O  for  a  blast  of  that  dread  horn, 
On  Fontarabian  echoes  borne, 

That  to  King  Charles  did  come, 
When  Rowland  brave,  and  Olivier, 
And  every  paladin  and  peer, 

On  Ronceavalles  died!" 

And  the  rebel  yell  was  more  inspiriting  to  its  own 
ranks  and  more  appalling  to  the  foe  than  all  the 
trumpets  that  had  urged  to  slaughter  in  all  the  other 
wars  of  profane  history.  Ere  the  inevitable  had 
come  our  depleted  ranks  were  somewhat  replenished 
when  he  recruited  from  the  cradle  and  the  grave, 
grandsires  of  three  score  and  youths  in  their  early 

13 


teens,  and  again  one  may  revert  to  heroic  lines  com- 
memorative of  another  "Lost  Cause" : 

"Low  as  that  tide  has  ebbed  with  me, 
It  still  reflects  to  memory's  eye 
The  hour,  my  brave,  my  only  boy 
Fell  by  the  side  of  great  Dundee. 
Why,  when  the  volleying  musket  played 
Against  the  bloody  Highland  blade, 
Why  was  I  not  beside  him  laid? 
Enough — he  died  the  death  of  fame; 
Enough — he  died  with  conquering  Graeme  !" 

Notwithstanding  their  overwhelming  superiority 
in  numbers,  in  resources,  in  equipment,  in  supplies 
of  every  description,  the  South  was  not  beaten  on  the 
field,  for  it  was  the  blockade  of  Southern  ports  that 
forced  the  surrender.  Just  as  the  navy  of  Great  Brit- 
ain overthrew  Napoleon,  so  it  was  the  navy  of  the 
Federal  Government  that  overcame  the  South.  Had 
we  been  able  to  freely  exchange  our  cotton  for  money 
and  supplies  from  abroad  our  finances  would  not  have 
gone  to  such  deplorable  and  hopeless  wreck  and  our 
armies  could  have  withstood  all  the  masses  of  the 
enemy  another  four  years. 

The  South  was  beaten  by  a  series  of  IFS.  Had  we 
not  fired  the  first  gun  at  Sumter  the  North  could 
never  have  recruited  a  million  of  men  to  invade  us. 
Had  Johnston  not  fallen  at  Shiloh  in  April  at  the 
head  of  his  victorious  legions  he  would  have  occupied 
Chicago  ere  the  summer  solstice.  Had  Stonewall 
Jackson  escaped  the  bullet  that  slew  him  he  would 
have  destroyed  or  captured  the  army  of  the  Potomac. 
Had  the  charge  at  Gettysburg  been  made  six  hours 
earlier,  as  was  ordered,  that  decisive  field  would  have 
been  a  Southern  victory,  Washington,  Baltimore,  and 


14 


Philadelphia  would  have  fallen,  and  Europe  would 
have  interposed  to  put  an  end  to  the  slaughter. 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  The  God  of  Battles  ordered 
otherwise  and  His  decree  was  that  the  ISTorth  should 
have  the  victory  and  the  South  should  reap  the  glory 
of  that  mighty  conflict.  So  be  it.  We  are  content. 
I  have  yet  to  see  or  to  hear  of  any  Southern  man  who 
wore  the  Gray  and  did  his  brave  devoir  on  stricken 
field  who  is  not  proud  of  the  deeds  of  the  sons  of  the 
South  from  the  firing  on  Sumter  to  Appomattox. 

As  the  years  pass  by  more  and  more  is  known  of 
the  sublime  position  of  the  South  in  her  effort  for 
independence. 

She  met  the  inevitable  in  the  spirit  of  General 
Maury's  farewell  order  to  the  men  of  the  Southwest : 
"Conscious  that  we  have  played  our  part  like  men; 
confident  of  the  righteousness  of  our  cause,  without 
regret  for  our  past,  without  despair  of  the  future." 

We  can  afford,  my  dear  comrades  to  wait.  Our 
cause  for  the  defense  of  which  so  many  brave  South- 
ern boys  gave  up  their  lives  will  find  justification  in 
the  tides  of  Time.  True,  it  may  be,  and  true  it  is, 
that  now,  the  uncultured,  the  under  bred,  and  the  ma- 
licious find  it  in  their  hearts  to  speak  of  the  followers 
of  Lee  and  Jackson  as  rebels  and  traitors.  I  wish 
such  as  these  had  been  with  me  on  a  recent  Sabbath. 
It  was  a  perfect  Holy  Day.  I  drove  to  Chestnut  Oak 
Ridge  Meeting  House  in  Orange  County  to  worship 
God  with  my  neighbors,  out  under  the  boughs  of 
those  grand  old  spreading  oaks,  where  the  pure  air 
is  uncontaminated  with  the  foul  odors  of  the  city 
slums;  where  the  skies  look  bluer  and  the  thunder 
heads  flit  across  the  horizon  like  playful  young  lambs, 
and  where  the  water  gushing  from  the  foot  of  the 

15 


meeting  house  hill,  is  clear  and  cool  and  sparkling — 
fit  for  the  gods. 

It  was  recess,  and  I  strolled  through  the  grave- 
yard in  the  rear  of  the  Meeting  House,  when  my  at- 
tention was  arrested  by  what  was  to  me,  a  very  touch- 
ing inscription  upon  an  unpretentious  headstone.  In 
June  1861,  at  a  country  boarding  school,  I  had  said 
"good-bye"  to  Albert  Holmes,  as  he  marched  away  to 
join  the  Confederate  army.  He  was  a  handsome, 
manly  young  fellow,  and  was  extremely  popular.  His 
fine  physique  would  command  attention  in  any  crowd. 
He  was  quitting  school  in  obedience  to  his  country's 
call.  I  had  oftentimes  made  inquiry  about  the  hand- 
some Albert  Holmes  of  my  school  boy  days.  The  only 
information  I  ever  obtained  was  "he  was  killed  in 
the  army."  I  found  him  that  Sunday  morning;  lov- 
ing hands  had  brought  his  bullet  ridden  body  back 
to  the  burying  ground  of  the  old  country  church, 
where  from  cradled  infancy,  he  had  been  taught  to 
worship  God,  and  tenderly  laid  him  there  to  sleep  the 
dreamless  sleep  of  death,  in  the  quiet  solitude  of  that 
majestic  old  forest,  where  the  red  breast  robin  in  the 
spring-time  will  bring  its  mate  to  nest  in  the  over- 
hanging boughs,  and  where  the  thrush  will  sit  a  sil- 
ent sentinel  at  the  sunset  hour,  warbling  its  sweet 
notes  as  a  requiem  to  the  dead  soldier.  I  stopped  to 
read  the  epitaph  of  my  dead  soldier  friend  and  school- 
mate. It  was  short  but  meant  so  much.  It  was  this : 
"In  obedience  to  the  laws  of  my  country,  I  fill  a 
soldier's  grave."  Tell  me  that  Albert  Holmes,  upon 
whose  head-stone  is  carved  such  sentiments,  was  a 
rebel  and  a  traitor  %  It  is  a  lie,  and  may  my  tongue 
cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  when  I  cease  to  de- 
clare it. 

16 


A  monument  recently  placed  in  a  cemetery  at 
Louisville,  Ky.,  bears  inscriptions  to  the  memory  of 
John  Austin,  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  James  Allen 
Austin,  his  son,  a  soldier  of  the  war  of  1812,  James 
Grigsby  Austin,  his  grand-son,  a  soldier  of  the  War 
with  Mexico,  and  James  Richard  Gathright,  his 
great-grandson,  a  Confederate  soldier  who  was  killed 
at  Murfreesboro,  Tenn.,  Jan.  1st,  1863.  All  were 
privates. 

Can  it  be  that  a  soldier  with  such  an  ancestry, 
rich  in  the  annals  of  his  country's  history,  was  a  rebel 
and  a  traitor  ? 

Away  with  the  miserable  miscreant  who  would  dis- 
honor such  memories ! 

Just  one  more  illustration.  The  community  in 
which  I  was  reared  was  fortunate  enough  to  num- 
ber among  its  cultured  citizenship  the  pure  and  able 
Carolinian  that  lent  dignity  to  the  Supreme  Court 
bench  of  the  State,  that  Christian  jurist,  Judge  Wil- 
liam H.  Battle. 

He  gave  to  the  Confederate  army  two  sons  as  pure 
as  woman  and  as  brave  as  Marshall  Ney.  I  knew 
them  in  my  youth,  and  my  young  life  was  made 
purer  and  better  for  having  known  them. 

One  fell  at  Sharpsburg  and  one  at  Gettysburg.  I 
well  remember  the  day  when  their  lifeless  bodies  were 
brought  back  to  Chapel  Hill,  to  be  laid  to  rest  in  the 
quiet  cemetery  of  their  native  town,  both  in  one  grave. 
I  can  never  forget  the  sorrow  that  filled  every  heart, 
and  the  deep  grief  that  was  depicted  on  every  counte- 
nance and  the  sympathetic  courtesy  that  barred  each 
place  of  business  in  the  town,  as  the  silent  cortege 
wended  its  way  to  the  cemetery.  Hearts  too  full  to 
give  utterance  to  their  feelings  tenderly  laid  Junius 

17 


and  Lewis  Battle  to  rest  that  day.  Tell  me  we  were 
burying  rebels  and  traitors  ?  Until  the  stars  burn  out 
in  their  sockets,  it  is  our  duty  to  declare  that  it  was  an 
interment  of  Christian  patriots. 

Those  who  utter  this  base  culmination  are  densely 
ignorant  or  infamously  false.  We  despise  the  coward- 
ly aspersion.  We  protest  against  it  in  the  name  of 
Mecklenburg  and  Alamance,  King's  Mountain,  Cow- 
pens,  Guilford  Court  House  and  Yorktown.  We 
spurn  it,  in  the  name  of  eighty  years  of  American 
history,  during  which  time  the  counsels  of  this  Re- 
public were  directed  and  controlled  by  Southern 
statesmen.  Who  wrote  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence ?  Whose  sword  beat  back  the  hosts  of  Britain  ? 
What  jurist  most  adorned  the  Supreme  Bench  of  this 
ISTation  ?  Whose  tongue  fired  the  American  heart 
with  love  of  freedom  and  cried  "Give  me  liberty  or 
give  me  death !"  Whose  valor  at  Xew  Orleans  cut  to 
pieces  the  flower  of  the  English  army  and  rolled  back 
the  tide  of  invasion  ? 

Vile  culminator  he  who  dares  affirm  that  one  drop 
of  rebel  blood  ever  flowed  in  the  veins  of  the  de- 
scendants of  Jefferson,  and  Jackson,  and  Patrick 
Henry,  and  Marshall  and  Madison,  and  George 
Washington  and  their  compatriots. 

Rebels !  the  battle  flags  of  the  Confederacy  flut- 
tered over  half  a  continent  and  the  thunder  of  its 
guns  echoed  around  the  globe.  When  before  in  the 
history  of  the  world  were  there  such  rebels  ?  It  was 
not  a  rebellion  but  a  gigantic  war. 

The  companionship  existing  between  comrades  in 
arms  is  the  closest  and  dearest  fellowship  that  comes 
to  men.  They  have  faced  dangers  and  endured  hard- 
ships together  for  the  sake  of  a  principle  for  which 

18 


willingly  they  would  yield  their  lives.  This  senti- 
ment of  brotherhood  is  always  stronger  among  the 
vanquished  than  it  is  with  the  victors,  else  human 
nature  would  be  even  more  frail  than  it  is.  The 
hardships  of  the  bivouac,  the  fatigues  of  the  march, 
the  dangers  of  the  battle  line  bring  about  a  fellow- 
ship unknown  to  peaceful  walk,  and  this  sentiment 
has  made  heroes  of  thousands  who  were  constitu- 
tionally timid.  The  soldier  of  the  South  endured 
greater  hardships  than  did  his  adversary  of  the 
North.  Our  equipment  was  inadequate,  our  food  in- 
sufficient, yet  the  South  fought  to  exhaustion.  On 
the  other  hand  the  enemy  was  the  amplest  equipped, 
the  best  fed,  the  best  clothed,  the  most  formidably 
armed  soldiery  who  had  heretofore  gone  to  war. 
These  things  should  be  considered  when  we  contem- 
plate the  mortal  struggle  between  the  six  and  the 
twenty-eight. 

Any  estimate  of  the  man  in  gray  is  incomplete 
without  a  scrutiny  of  his  conduct  after  the  war.  I 
harbor  no  resentment  against  our  adversaries  of  1861- 
65.  It  is  notorious  that  the  South  freely  and  cordial- 
ly forgave  the  North  long  before  the  North  forgave 
the  South.  Our  protestations  of  loyalty,  though 
made  by  a  soldier  race  ever  true  to  plighted  faith,  fell 
on  deaf  ears  and  were  discredited  at  the  North.  The 
debate  in  the  national  House  of  Representatives  be- 
tween Benjamin  H.  Hill  and  James  Gr.  Blaine  in 
1876  shows  that.  It  was  not  until  a  score  of  years 
later  when  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish-American 
War  the  South  sprang  to  arms  in  defense  of  the 
flag  against  a  foreign  foe.  that  the  North  fully  ac- 
cepted our  professions  of  loyalty.  When  the  Win- 
slow  drifted,  disabled,  and  helpless  out  of  the  harbor 

19 


at  Cardenas  with  her  deck  crimsom  with  the  blood 
of  handsome  young  Worth  Bagley  of  North  Carolina, 
the  son  of  a  Confederate  Soldier,  the  first  to  die  in 
defense  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  Then  and  not 
until  then  the  bloody  shirt,  emblem  of  hate  and  mal- 
ice, was  furled. 

"It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  there  are  more  monu- 
ments erected  commemorating  the  principles  and 
heroes  of  the  Confederate  States,  which  lived  only 
four  years,  than  have  been  erected  or  constructed  to 
any  single  cause,  political,  military  or  religious  in  the 
world's  history.  More  books  must  be  written,  the 
story  of  the  struggle  must  be  correct,  the  judgment  of 
mankind  must  be  just.  We,  the  sentinels,  standing 
now  on  the  shores,  can  hear  the  voices  of  those  who 
have  passed  over  to  be  with  the  immortals  still  call- 
ing. They  bid  us  be  true  to  the  great  principles  for 
which  these  heroes  and  martyrs  died.  The  hundreds 
of  monuments  scattered  throughout  the  South  with 
voiceful  stone  speak  of  the  matchless  courage  and  the 
undaunted  gallantry  of  the  Confederate  soldiers,  and 
of  the  immeasurable  patriotism  of  the  Southern  peo- 
ple. These  will  live  when  books  are  changed;  when, 
it  may  be,  the  past  may  be  forgotten,  but  these  im- 
perishable monuments  with  their  inscriptions  will 
remain  for  a  thousand  years ;  and  when  they  shall 
have  crumbled  into  dust  before  the  ravages  of  time, 
others  will  spring  up,  and  they  will  be  renewed,  so 
that  the  story  which  they  tell  will  go  down  through 
the  ages  with  undiminished  light  and  with  unfading 
glorv,  a  love  song  to  the  Valor  of  the  Confederate 
Soldier." 

With  pleasurable  pride  I  refer  to  the  high  per- 

20 


sonnel  of  the  Confederate  soldier,  his  polish  and  fin- 
ish as  a  gentlemen,  proven  by  conduct  as  such. 

It  is  true  that  speaking  pro  rata,  the  scholarship 
of  this  country  prior  to  the  War,  was  largely  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  More  Southern  gentle- 
men educated  their  sons  at  Princeton,  Harvard,  and 
other  institutions  in  the  North — especially  Prince- 
ton, and  more  young  men  went  abroad  to  complete 
their  education  than  from  the  North.  The  truth  is, 
the  large  majority  of  Confederate  soldiers  were  edu- 
cated gentlemen.  The  result  was  when  the  Con- 
federates made  excursions  into  the  enemy's  country 
there  were  few  if  any  charges  of  raids  upon  private 
homes,  acts  of  rapine,  the  pillaging  of  houses  of 
worship,  the  purloining  of  sacrificial  and  baptismal 
furnishings,  the  appropriating  of  family  heirlooms, 
the  looting  of  homes,  the  tying  up  by  the  thumbs  of 
aged  persons  to  make  them  declare  the  hiding  places 
of  hidden  treasures. 

What  a  contrast  between  the  march  of  Sherman 
through  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  to  the  invasion  of 
Pennsylvania  by  Lee. 

The  explanation  is  that  Lee's  army  was  consti- 
tuted largely  of  Southern  gentlemen. 

The  mills  of  the  Gods  grind  slowly,  but  they  grind 
exceedingly  fine.  The  Confederate  soldier  is  coming 
into  his  own. 

Fifty  years  from  the  unfortunate,  unhappy  and 
unrighteous  assassination  of  Mr.  Lincoln  finds  a 
Confederate  soldier  filling  the  high  and  honorable 
office  of  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States. 

I  challenge  history  to  produce  the  record  of  any 
army  that  went  down  to  defeat,  that  furnished  so 
many  gentlemen  qualified  to  grace  the  United  States 

21 


Senate,  and  who  did  fill  positions  in  that  august  body 
with  honor  and  distinction.  Also  governors  of  the 
various  States,  members  of  Congress  and  ministers 
to  foreign  courts. 

So  large  was  the  number  of  gentlemen  who  belong- 
ed to  the  Confederate  army  who  afterward  came 
into  high  and  honorable  office,  the  appelation,  the 
"Confederate  Brigadier"  was  a  sweet  morsel  under 
the  tongue  of  some  of  the  envious  Yankees.  My  com- 
rades, history  will  yet  place  the  Confederate  soldier 
upon  a  pedestal  and  his  name  and  fame  will  go  sound- 
ing down  the  ages. 

But  I  would  speak  of  the  Southern  soldier  in  the 
days  of  Reconstruction  when  fanaticism  had  dis- 
franchised him  and  pillage  had  impoverished  him; 
and  I  do  so  without  bitterness  and  without  rancor. 
He  was  never  so  admirable,  never  so  superb,  as  in 
that  trying  epoch.  A  multitude  of  remorseless  and 
insatiate  vultures  descended  from  the  North  upon 
the  prostrate  South  in  1865.  Where  the  carcass  is 
there  the  carrion  crow  will  flock.  They  were  aptly 
stigmatized  as  carpetbaggers,  and  the  term  has  be- 
come synonymous  with  all  that  is  vile  and  infamous 
and  odious  in  human  equation.  They  seized  upon 
the  governments  of  the  Southern  States  when  the  bay- 
onet was  at  the  throat  of  every  'Southern  man.  They 
set  the  slave  to  political  rule  above  his  former  master 
and  they  robbed  a  beaten  people  with  impunity,  with- 
out shame  and  without  remorse.  Taxation  became 
confiscation  and  the  fairest  land  under  the  sun  peo- 
pled by  the  noblest  race  the  world  has  yet  produced 
was  separated  into  satrapies  that  protected  the  harp- 
ies in  their  hellish  work  of  desolation  and  atrocity. 


22 


'It  was  then  that  the  Southerner,  the  man  who 
wore  the  gray,  proved  the  metal  of  which  he  was 
made  and  he  was  even  greater  in  the  civic  conflict 
than  he  had  been  on  the  field  of  Mars.  Stigmatized 
as  a  traitor,  disfranchised,  robbed  of  his  property, 
his  home  ruined,  his  fields  devastated — this  man  rose 
like  an  Olympian  demigod,  smote  the  vandals,  and 
they  were  not.  He  seized  the  reins  of  government, 
brought  order  out  of  chaos,  established  free  govern- 
ment and  enthroned  justice,  and  today  his  descen- 
dants are  as  prosperous  in  life  and  compose  as  fine  a 
citizenship  as  does  the  posterity  of  his  Northern  ad-- 
versary  on  whom  the  government  has  bestowed  bil- 
lions in  pensions.  I  defy  the  historian  to  point  to 
another  such  amazing  civic  exploit,  crowned  with 
such  brilliant  civic  victory,  in  the  entire  story  of 
mankind.  No  wonder  the  Southerner  walks  the 
earth,  today,  the  proudest  man  on  God's  footstool! 

The  cause  was  lost,  'tis  said.  Yes,  but  is  it  not  re- 
gained and  more  vital  than  it  was  the  day  South 
Carolina  proclaimed  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  ? 
True  the  powers  of  the  national  establishment  have 
been  greatly  augmented  at  the  exj>ense  of  the  States 
— all  the  States;  but  what  was  the  "Cause"  of  the 
South  ?  This,  simply  this,  only  this — the  equality  of 
the  States  under  the  Constitution.  For  that  she  re- 
volted, for  that  she  fought,  for  that  she  suffered,  for 
that,  for  a  time,  she  was  beaten. 

But  today  the  equality  of  the  States  under  the 
'Constitution  maintains.  It  is  by  no  one  threatened; 
it  is  by  everyone  cherished  and  defended. 

It  is  not  a  lost  cause,  for  it  was  the  cause  of  human 
liberty  and  constitutional  government,  based  on  the 
equality  of  the  States. 

23 


The  war  between  the  states  was  fought,  really, 
by  the  women  who  stayed  at  home.  Had  they 
uttered  a  cry,  had  they  complained,  the  morale  of 
Lee's  army  would  have  dissipated  in  a  day. 

Who  can  sound  to  the  depth  the  agony  that  must 
have  torn  the  breasts  of  those  brave  women,  waiting 
at  home  for  widowhood  ? 

What  words  can  picture  the  blackness  of  their 
nights,  the  shadow  of  their  dreams,  the  visions  that 
sprang  by  day  from  the  detail  of  their  household 
task?  And  yet  they  bore  it  all  silently,  except  for 
the  prayers  they  uttered  and  the  sob  that  nature 
calls  from  woman's  heart,  the  tears  that  brighten 
woman's  eyes. 

How  many  mothers  were  there  in  those  days  of 
stress  and  storm  like  her  of  that  touching  interlude 
of  Tennyson's : 

"Home  they  brought  her  warrior   dead, 
She  neither  swooned  nor  uttered  cry; 
All  her  maidens  watching,  said 
She  must  weep  or  she  must  die. 

Then  they  praised  him  soft  and  low, 
Called  him  worthy  to  be  loved, 
Truest  friend  and  noblest  foe, 
Yet  she  neither  spoke  nor  moved. 

Stole  a  maiden  from  her  place, 
Lightly  to  the  warrior  stepped, 
Took  the   face-cloth   from  the   face, 
Yet  she  neither  moved  nor  wept. 

Rose  a  nurse  of  ninety  years, 

Set  his  child  upon  her  knee, 

Like  summer  tempest  came  her  tears, 

'Sweet  my  child,  I  live  for  thee.'  " 

And  how  she  did  live  for  him,  that  patient  widowed 
mother  of  the  'South ;  what  a  man  she  made  of  him ; 

24 


how  she  has  kept  true  in  his  breast  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  his  race;  how  she  has  fed  him  clothed  him, 
brought  him  up  through  poverty  to  wealth,  from 
weakness  to  strength,  to  the  high  honor  of  hard  work, 
through  the  indomitable  example  that  she  set!  She 
has  made  of  the  sturdy  manhood  of  the  South  the 
highest  product  which  a  Christian  race  has  yet  at- 
tained. 

In  conclusion  I  plagerize  from  the  beautiful  re- 
marks of  our  distinguished  Commander,  because  he 
most  graciously  pays  beautiful  tribute  to  the  Con- 
federate soldiers. 

"It  was  impossible,  humanly  speaking,  to  avoid  the 
war  between  the  states.  There  are  those  who  say  it  is 
better  that  the  South  had  never  fought  than  to  have 
fought  and  failed.  That  she  lost  is  no  evidence  that 
she  was  wrong.  History  contains  thousands  of  ex- 
amples of  where  the  right  has  gone  down  before  force. 
We  cannot  understand  the  ways  of  the  Ruler  of  the 
Universe,  but  none  can  deny  that  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  human  affairs  right  and  justice  do  not  at 
all  times  prevail.  The  South  should  ever  treasure  the 
memory  of  her  sons  as  worth  more  than  all  the  wealth 
of  this  great  country;  which  runs  into  such  figures 
that  all  human  imagination  stands  appalled  before 
their  immensity. 

"England,  with  her  thousand  years  of  national  life 
and  ceaseless  struggle  and  conflict;  with  her  resting 
place  in  Westminster  for  her  renowned  dead,  which 
is  the  highest  reward  that  a  nation  can  bestow,  has 
no  such  riches  as  those  which  were  laid  up  in  human 
history  by  the  Confederate  States  in  the  four  brief 
years  of  their  existence.  There  is  nothing  in  West- 
minster equal  to  Robert  E.  Lee.     Great  soldiers  sleep 

25 


there;  great  soldiers  rest  in  St.  Paul's;  but  take  man 
and  soldier  combined,  and  the  Confederate  States 
hold  up  Robert  E.  Lee  as  their  contribution  to  hu- 
man greatness,  and  the  world  is  bound  to  say  that  his 
equal  does  not  rest  in  that  great  structure  beside  the 
banks  of  the  Thames. 

"As  one  stands  in  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  where 
there  has  been  displayed  all  that  art  and  genius  can 
devise  to  create  a  soft  and  sentimental  halo  around 
the  tomb  of  JSTapoleon,  and  where  thousands  go  year 
by  year  under  the  influence  and  spell  created  about 
the  grave  of  him,  who  dying,  said,,  "Bury  me  on  the 
banks  of  the  Seine,  amidst  the  people  I  love  so  well," 
— there  is  nothing  there  that  is  as  great  as  the  tomb 
of  Stonewall  Jackson  in  the  little  city  of  Lexington. 
Virginia,  which  rests  on  the  side  of  the  Blue  Ridge ; 
and  neither  the  tombs  in  the  churches,  nor  the  treas- 
ures of  Montmartre,  the  resting  place  of  France's 
greatest  dead,  can  produce  a  genius  so  brilliant  as 
Forest,  or  cavalry  leaders  so  renowned  as  Morgan  and 
Stuart,  You  may  read  all  the  annals  of  the  world 
which  tell  of  the  exploits  of  seamen  on  all  the  waters 
that  cover  the  earth,  but  nowhere  can  you  find  any- 
thing that  will  excel  the  enterprise,  the  courage  and 
the  genius  of  our  'Southern  sailors — 'Semmes,  Maffitt, 
Waddill,  and  their  illustrious  associates  in  the  navy 
of  the  Confederacy.  You  may  search  all  the  niches 
in  the  sacred  precincts  of  Westminster,  and  you  can 
continue  this  search  all  over  the  capitols  and  ceme- 
teries in  the  world,  but  you  cannot  find  the  story  of 
a  nobler  character  than  that  of  Jefferson  Davis,  or 
one  who,  amidst  the  vicissitudes  of  a  great  war  and 
helpless  to  stay  the  irresistible  tide  of  fate,  saw  his 
nation  die  with  a  sublimer  dignity,  with  nobler  gran- 

26 


deur  or  truer  courage.  The  Confederate  soldier, 
thank  Heaven,  needs  no  Westminster  Ab'bey,  nor 
splendid  Mausoleum  in  St.  Paul's. 

"Thank  God,  no  man  can  change  the  past.  Its  re- 
cords are  written  and  sealed,  and  there  can  be  no  in- 
terlineations or  amendments.  We  must  open  and 
read  the  pages  as  they  are  recorded  by  Fate.  Be- 
yond this  we  ask  not  to  go.  The  love  of  truth  is  one 
of  the  noblest  impulses  which  can  touch  the  human 
heart,  and  by  all  the  glories  of  the  past  we  demand 
that  the  truth  shall  be  known  and  declared.  Any 
Southern  soldier,  or  Southern  man  or  woman  who 
asks  less  is  a  craven,  and  who  takes  less  is  a  coward. 

"Comrades,  we  have  undergone  many  vicissitudes, 
and  it  has  pleased  God  to  bless  us  with  many  tokens 
of  prosperity  and  greatness  to  come.  Let  the  new 
generation  remember  that  men  are  grander  than  pos- 
sessions in  any  State.  And  when  we  train  the  young 
man  for  the  future  responsibility,  where  will  we  find 
among  all  the  sons  of  earth  grander  examples  of  hu- 
man greatness  than  in  the  men  who  sleep  now  in  their 
tattered  coats  of  gray. 

"God  be  thanked  that  whatever  the  poverty  of  the 
'South,  when  the  nations  of  the  earth  left  her  to  the 
rapacity  of  the  myriads,  that  she  retained,  and  has 
ever  possessed,  a  quality  of  manhood,  of  lofty  in- 
tegrity, and  Christian  fortitude  and  serenity,  unex- 
celled in  human  history." 

Nothing  can  more  aptly  show  that  the  spirit  of 
duty  animated  the  private  in  the  ranks  equally  with 
the  great  leaders  than  the  account  of  his  farewell  at 
Appomattox  by  Gen.  Bryan  Grimes.,  of  North  Caro- 
lina, in  which  he  declares: 

"When  riding  up  to  my  regiment  (who  had  fol- 
27 


lowed  me  through  four  years  of  suffering,  toil  and 
privation  often  worse  than  death)  to  bid  them  fare- 
well, a  cadaverous,  ragged  and  barefooted  man  grasp- 
ed me  by  the  hand,  and  choking  with  sobs,  said: 
'Good-bye,  General,  God  bless  you ;  we  will  go  home, 
make  three  more  crops  and  try  them  again.'  ' 

'Such  sublime  faith,  such  adherence  to  principle, 
in  the  face  of  destruction,  cannot  perish  without 
fruit,  while  a  righteous  God  sits  upon  His  throne, 
judging  the  hearts  of  men. 

~No  land  upon  earth,  no  page  of  human  history  ever 
presented  a  parallel  to  the  Confederate  soldier.  Let 
us  cherish  then,  Fellow  Comrades,  our  common  heri- 
tage. Let  us  link  with  triple  bonds  of  friendship, 
those  who  survive  in  loyal  brotherhood  and  touch  el- 
bows in  the  serene  and  fearless  inarch  to  the  end, 
whither  so  many  noble  souls  have  gone  before  and 
are  now  resting  under  the  shade  of  the  trees. 

THE  END  OF  THE  TIDE 
Adown  the  years  that  come  to  me 
In  their  ceaseless  flow  to  a  dim,  dread  sea, 
Hurrying  on  with  the  tide  which  bears 
The  sum  of  our  hopes  and  joys  and  cares 
Into  the  land  of  the  long  ago, 
Or  out  with  the  hours  we  ne'er  did  know, 
Into  life's  broader  realms — 
Come,  with  a  force  that  overwhelms, 
Thoughts  to  me  there,  as  I  stand  beside — 
What  will  there  be  at  the  end  of  the  tide? 
Out  of  the  mists  that  hide  the  flame 
Of  the  dawn  with  its  dream  of  a  certain  fame. 
When,   with  their  tips  of  phantasmic  fire, 
Rise  the  red  pinions  higher,  higher, 
Whirling  aloft  in  their  grand,  mad  flight, 
Till  the  stars  hide  away  in  the  shroud  of  night 
And  crushed  are  the  mists  of  the  moldy  past — 
What  will  there  be,  when  the  fogs  at  last 
Are  lifted  away  from  the  years  they  dull — 
What  will  there  be  when  the  day's  at  full? 
28 


00032757614 


FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


\M 


:SN\^ 


